O, Juliet Part 3

He turned where he stood but did not walk away. I could see his body trembling. My own felt suddenly weak.

"What are you doing in this house?" My voice was urgent. "The Medici bear no more love for the Monticecco than do the Capelletti."

"I came to change that," Romeo said, turning back to me. "These are ancient rivalries, and Don Cosimo is a reasonable man. He claims to want peace in Florence. I sought an audience with him. I was too late to see him before the ball, but I will speak to him before the night is over."

"Ah, Romeo . . ." Now it was I at a loss for words. I was a girl with knowledge of my father's business with this family. I was not a traitor, yet I felt compelled to say: "Are you so sure this feud is ancient?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you know of a sunken cargo s.h.i.+p?"

"Nothing."

I could say no more. "I must go."

"No, wait."

He took my arm in a desperate grip. I looked down at his hand, square and strong, and wished my poem alive-Oh, that Romeo held my face tender in his palm-but I pulled from his grasp, refusing to meet his eye.

Lifting my skirts, I ran from the garden. The palazzo vestibule felt small and stuffy, its pale green marble suddenly sinister in the torchlight. I hurried up the stairs to the ballroom, rearranging my face to hide the chaos of feeling and lies.

And not a moment too soon.

My father reared up before me like a jagged mountain peak.

"Where have you been!" he demanded, having to shout above the music and the ma.s.s of people dancing.

"I'm sorry, Papa, I felt ill. I went to the garden for a breath of air. I'm better now."

His eyes were in line with the doorway and I thought suddenly that Romeo might enter just behind me-a dangerous coincidence. I took my father's arm and brought him around, facing away from the door, then turned on my girlish charms, those he had always delighted in, in my younger years.

"Did you dance with Mama?" I asked, smiling up at him. "You know how she loves a saltarello saltarello."

"No," he growled, unamused, "I was too busy consoling Signor Strozzi, who was unable to find my daughter."

"Well, he mustn't have tried very hard," I answered with a flash of peevishness. "Perhaps a single flight of stairs was too hard on his poor old bandy legs."

"Juliet!" Papa swung me around to face him. His expression was as red and ragged as it had been while he'd talked of his sabotaged business. He did not seem to care that people were staring.

But then neither did I.

His voice was low and threatening. "I am taking you to speak with your betrothed."

"He is not my betrothed yet yet," was my rebellious retort.

I thought my father's face might explode with his fury, but now he was aware of the scene he was creating in the Medici ballroom, and he reined himself in. His voice remained threatening.

"We will speak of your unruliness later. But now you will begin comporting yourself like the n.o.blewoman you seem to have forgotten you are, and you will make your apologies to Signor Strozzi for your absence. Then you will satisfy him that he has chosen for himself a proper Florentine wife and not some wild, willful child that will bring him nothing but ill fortune in his life. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Papa."

As he pulled me around the dance floor's perimeter, I heard him muttering, "This is your mother's fault.... Too permissive . . . the price of educating a girl . . ."

I smiled to myself. Too late. Knowledge is inside me. It cannot be unlearned. Too late. Knowledge is inside me. It cannot be unlearned.

Then I was standing before Jacopo Strozzi. He was not, as my father had indicated, waiting with bated breath to see me. Clearly he was straining to hear a conversation being carried on by two bankers nearby about the papal curia's treasury deficit.

"She was dizzy," my father told Jacopo. "Needed some air. Please excuse me." He disappeared into the crowd.

"Good evening, signorina," Jacopo said, hard-pressed to tear himself away from the financial gossip. He forced himself, however, and bowed to me with great formality.

"Good evening, signor," I answered in kind, and curtsied perfunctorily.

"You're looking lovely this evening."

"Thank you."

Suddenly he stiffened so sharply at the sight of something behind me that I turned to see what had alarmed him. It was his mother, her eyes fixed on the pair of us with such blatant interest that even I grew uncomfortable. I turned back to Jacopo, taking pity on the poor man.

"A beautiful evening," I said, striving for levity. "The night air was cool. It cleared my head."

"Why did it need clearing?" he asked, forcing himself to recover from the embarra.s.sment.

"Three dances without stopping. I was overheated." I looked down at my gown. "The brocade is a bit heavy."

I caught him staring at my chest and imagined him enchanted with my bosom. But his next words disabused me of the thought.

"That is a rare weave," he said of my dusty rose bodice. "The warp, I would say, is the pink, the woof a soft gray, or perhaps tawny." He seemed to be warming to his subject, his mother forgotten. "Whichever, the effect is soft and elegant." He fixed me with one of his ghastly smiles. "You wear it well, my lady."

"How kind of you to say so," I replied. I searched for any reasonable conversation. "Are brocades your specialty?" I seemed to remember my father had decided to bring the man into his textile business for some talent or another.

But Jacopo's concentration had been drawn elsewhere, as the pair nearby who discussed the curia's holdings mentioned an astonis.h.i.+ngly large sum of money.

"And you were saying? Signor Strozzi," I prodded him, annoyed at how tenuous was my hold on the attentions of my future husband.

"I was saying . . . ?" He became fl.u.s.tered with his complete lapse in memory of our conversation.

"Brocades are your specialty?" I prompted.

"Brocades and wool," he said, composing himself. "Many find wool a dull cloth, but I find it exciting." He spoke the last word with little conviction, but in fact a dull gleam had come into Jacopo's eyes. "It is all in the sheep, you see. . . ."

Just then I saw Romeo enter the room. I struggled to hold my attention on Signor Strozzi, who was now droning on about the grazing habits of English ewes, while I followed the movements of my lithe and handsome young poet as he wove singlemindedly through the crowd toward Cosimo de' Medici.

"Have you noticed that? Lady Juliet?"

"Oh, ah . . . so sorry. Have I noticed . . . ?"

"That English wool is softer, less scratchy on the skin?"

"You know, I have actually. I own a wine-colored wool gown that feels as smooth as silk."

"My point exactly," he said with what, in this gentleman, must pa.s.s for delight. "If you show me that dress, I will be able to tell you the very county in which those sheep grazed."

"Really?" I coughed, covering my mouth, so I could turn away from Jacopo, for Romeo was now standing by Don Cosimo's side, waiting patiently while he spoke to his wife, Contessina. Then she moved away. I coughed again. "Signor Strozzi," I said in a weak voice, "would you be so kind as to pat me on the back?"

"Of course, of course," he said, and complied, though I noticed he took the opportunity to lean in the direction of the two men discussing the pope's finances.

Romeo had succeeded in gaining Don Cosimo's attention. From the Medici's expression I could see his young pet.i.tioner had wasted no time getting to his point. The older man's look was grave, but he was nodding his head as Romeo spoke, pa.s.sion animating his face, his hands-those beautiful hands-expressively slicing and chopping the air before him.

"A few more pats and I will be fine," I said to Jacopo, who was as distracted as I.

Now Don Cosimo was speaking to Romeo, who listened with rapt attention to every syllable uttered. He looked as though he wished to reply, but Cosimo's monologue had become a lecture-one that was, in fact, growing louder so that even across the room, with music still playing, I heard several fragments-"ancient hatreds" and "unlikely reconciliation."

The two had attracted attention to themselves, and now I saw a group of young men pointing to Romeo. A snarling face. A fist raised. He had been recognized-Daniel in the lion's den!

Commotion ensued and as the room erupted, I used the diversion to slip away from Jacopo's ministrations. Romeo was making for the double doors, a gang of n.o.ble thugs gaining on him. I darted in from the other side, coming face-to-face with him for the briefest moment-long enough for him to revel in my need to see him.

His smile was brilliant. "The cathedral, noon on Wednesday," he said, then darted away and down the marble stairs.

I planted myself square in the middle of the doorway with an innocent smile on my face. The toughs were forced to stop short to keep from knocking me down. I cried out, as if terrified by the sight of them bearing down on me. They moved to the right and I feinted right. They tried the left and I, with a girlish giggle, moved left, guileless and confused.

By now Romeo had certainly made the street. I curtsied prettily and let the frustrated ruffians pa.s.s, satisfied with my impromptu performance.

I sidestepped to a window overlooking the street to claim one more vision of this daring soul, but was greeted by nothing more than sight of his pursuers bursting from the front door and running out into the empty, torchlit street, with futile looks this way and that.

Then all at once a white horse exploded from an alleyway into their midst, scattering the men like a handful of dice thrown on the ground. They loudly cursed the rider.

It was Romeo!

I thrilled as the mount reared up proudly on two legs and crashed down again. Then amid a terrible clattering of hooves on cobble, horse and master sped off into the dark.

I wondered how I could calmly return to Jacopo Strozzi-his grazing ewes and monetary distractions. All my thoughts were of this Monticecco man, so recently a stranger, now a star at the center of my universe. And I wondered at the time and place for the future a.s.signation he had announced-the cathedral at noon on Wednesday. Why the Duomo? And why in broad daylight?

And then I knew. I sighed happily. Romeo. My poet. My friend. Vita Nuova.

A New Life!

Chapter Four.

How many times that Wednesday morn I rushed between my bedroom's window on the street to its garden balcony, I do not know. The window was to see the arrival of Lucrezia in her litter come to fetch me, and the balcony to cool my brow, receive a chestful of calming air.

She could not be late. Not today!

I had many times pleaded with my father for leave to go to the cathedral, and just as many been refused. It was not to Ma.s.s I wished to go-for that purpose they surely would have given me leave-but to Friar Bartolomo's weekly "Symposium" on the subject of Dante Alighieri's works. It was a popular lecture, one attended by hundreds, sometimes a thousand, it was said, so beloved were his poems with his Florentine brethren.

It was this gathering to which Romeo Monticecco had invited me as he'd fled the Medici ballroom. I'd thought of nothing else since then, and worried myself sick with the thought of my father's certain prohibition.

Then a miracle on Tuesday.

The sinking of his s.h.i.+p full of goods forced a sudden trip to the port town of Pisa. I was left blessedly alone with Mama, who, while strict in many ways, was in others very malleable. I proceeded to bandy about the name of my friend Lucrezia, whom I had begged and convinced to come along to the symposium.

"Lucrezia has asked me to accompany her to the Duomo at Wednesday noon," I lied. "To the symposium," I reminded my absentminded mother. "Dante."

She had perked up instantly, for she approved very heartily of my friends.h.i.+p with a soon-to-be Medici, and the more time I spent in her company, the better. Then Mama's face fell.

"You know how often your father has said no to this."

"But we'll have a chaperone-hers. And we'll go in the Tornabuoni litter." I spoke conspiratorially. "The whole town is still talking about the Medici ball. Lucrezia is so admired as a great lady."

"Yes, she is." Mama pursed her lips into a tight bud as she did when she was thinking hard. "Well, I suppose it will be all right. But you must dress properly. Something demure."

I had won my permission.

Now I was peering out my front window in nervous antic.i.p.ation. I wore a sky blue silk guarnacca guarnacca, its bodice so high that not an inch of bosom could be seen, and a thick rolled headdress that covered my hair. I bit my lips to pink them, and slapped my cheeks to do the same. The use of cosmetics was frowned upon in my father's house, and in any event none would be proper for a visit to the Duomo at noon.

Then I saw them-four liveried bearers carrying the wide, gilded Tornabuoni litter. I raced down the steps, calling good-bye to Mama, and was out the door and settled breathlessly next to Lucrezia in the s.p.a.ce of a minute. Our chaperone, old Signora Munao, sat across from us and stayed very silent, as was her place to do.

"Very ladylike," Lucrezia said, noting my perspiring face and already lopsided headdress.

"Fix it, please." I turned to her. She righted the rolled coif, tucking a lock that had gone astray back under it. With her handkerchief she blotted my brow and upper lip.

I felt suddenly guilty. I'd not told Lucrezia of my rendezvous with Romeo. Indeed, I had told her nothing of him at all.

"I wonder what circle of h.e.l.l Friar Bartolomo will be expounding upon today," I said, rather than reveal my true reason for our outing.

"No wonder you're warm," she muttered, seemingly unconcerned with the subject of Dante's Inferno. Inferno. "Any higher and your bodice would be up to your eyes." "Any higher and your bodice would be up to your eyes."

"Mama worries endlessly about decorum."

"Why did she even let you come?"

"Well . . . I . . ."

"And why, suddenly, is the symposium something you so desperately need to hear?" Her tone was suspicious. Lucrezia Tornabuoni was a young woman of rare intellect and spotless instinct. Something was afoot and she knew it.

This was the time for my revelation. But I could not bring myself to reveal it. Instead I quoted, full of pa.s.sion: O you possessed of st.u.r.dy intellects, observe the teaching that is hidden here beneath the veil of verses so obscure....

"All right, all right," Lucrezia cried in mock despair. "To the Duomo, then."

The litter came round a corner into the cathedral square and we exited into the great circular shadow of Brunelleschi's architectural masterpiece. I had been nine years old the day of the famous church's consecration, its ma.s.sive egg-shaped dome the grandest in the world. Pope Eugenius had come from Rome for the celebration and spectacle, as had two hundred thousand souls from everywhere.

Now as we entered the enormous marble edifice, the crowd seemed spa.r.s.e in comparison with that day, yet every face seemed eager and cheerful, and all moved quickly to the front altar in order to better hear the friar's lecture.